Nuance Index

Yes, could you increase the timer to be longer than 1 year so that we don’t need a 4th or 5h version of the same thread?

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Sure, I did 2.5 years for now!

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Sounds good to me, thank you!

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reminder to self to add hard to/difficult to

Reposting for ease

Giving and receiving in Japanese. First we have to remember that which verb we use will be dependent on the social status of the giver and receiver. We have 3 levels in this case. The upper one is for social betters such as doctors, teachers, and bosses. The middle is for people in the same social level as us, like friends or coworkers. The third is for social lessers, which you can use for people, but depending on the case, it can be very rude. It’s often used with animals.

In my diagram, the upper level 目上(めうえ) is represented with 上司(じょうし) (boss), the same level has (わたし) (you the speaker) and your friend(s) 友達(ともだち), and the lower level 目下(めした) a (ねこ) (cat).

The verbs are written out along the arrows. Who takes the が particle (or is the doer) for each verb matches with the color of the verb. For example, for もらう, you, the speaker, take が which is written in gray/pencil while 友達(ともだち) takes が for same level くれる. The direction of the arrows indicate who gives what to who. This might get confusing with translations, but if you can conceptualize it in just Japanese, I think that will make it much easier to understand. For both いただく and くださる the boss 上司(じょうし) gives something to me, the speaker.
image

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I was talking with a friend the other day and was explaining the difference between 燃える・燃やす and 焦げる・焦がす since in English they can both just be “to burn”.
燃える is more like to burn up in flames, to be set ablaze. The flames are usually important (but not 100% required).
焦げる is for when something (very often food, almost exclusively in my experience) burns or chars, but the emphasis is on the charred aspect rather than the flaming aspect.

http://www.st38.net/naruhodo-nattoku-chigai/z0330.html
【焦げる】 と 【焼ける】 と 【燃える】 はどう違いますか? | HiNative (The example in this answer gave me a good chuckle)

I tend to have these kinds of conversations pretty frequently, so I’ll try to remember to come here and add examples when I can.

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oooh, funsies! my inner pyromaniac is delighted

Yes, please share more whenever you have the energy :smiley:

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I heard a Japanese person once say (in English) “milk is my natural enemy,” and I think that’s how we should all express it from now on.

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I love this. What would it be? 牛乳(ぎゅうにゅう)は(当然(とうぜん)な・自然(しぜん)な)大敵(たいてき)?

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天敵?

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I did not realize that was a singular word, cool! til

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Is it normal to think that 牛乳は僕の天敵です, though? What is in the train of thought / supposed pre-translation?

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According to my wife it’s not strange for people to use 天敵 that way.

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Aye. The strange part is that the beginning should be 牛乳ミルク instead :wink:

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As @Leebo said, this is a pretty common usage for that word. In my experience it’s the Japanese way of casually saying “Man I hate ______”, as 大嫌い tends to have a pretty strong and absolute connotation that can reflect poorly on your personality depending on context and relationship with the person you say it to.

Also wanted to add another one I remembered from another thread. にお, にお, and かお
匂い = A smell. Could be good (いい匂い!), neutral, or bad depending on context.
臭い = a bad smell (can also be read くさい as an adjective), typically used in writing to specify that the smell is unpleasant
香り = Aroma, a good smell. Also the first half of 香水, or perfume, to make it easier to imagine.

Didn’t realize you’d gotten married, congrats!

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I added these and your previous suggestions. :slight_smile: I mostly copied your words, but if there’s any phrasing you don’t agree with, please feel free to say something, or just correct it yourself since the first post’s a wiki

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The truth is, I am yet to find a post / context explaining this, unrelated to pesticides and weeds and food chain.

Regarding 臭い, explaining to be a suffix is missing; although my hunch does feel like suffix. (And I already found this one in a dictionary.)

As for 天敵, it’s more of a slang term than a prescriptivist “proper” usage.

For 臭い, I’m not sure what you mean by suffix, unless you’re talking about the fact that when read as くさい it’s an い-adjective. When read as におい there is no suffix involved whatsoever, it’s just a noun that happens to end in い.

As for posts explaining it, I’d have to look around as I’m just speaking from personal experience living and working in Japan.

Didn’t realize this at all! Thanks for doing the extra legwork to pick up the slack from my being completely oblivious :joy:

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My exposure was 煙臭い.

In Goo JJ (デジタル大辞泉),

  1. [接尾]《形容詞型活用[文]くさ・し(ク活)》名詞またはそれに準じるものに付く。
    1. …のようなにおいがする意を表す。「汗―・い」「こげ―・い」
    2. …のようなようすであるの意を表す。「年寄り―・い」「インテリ―・い」
    3. 上にくる語の意を強める。「けち―・い」「てれ―・い」
下接語

青臭い
汗臭い
阿呆(あほ)臭い
磯(いそ)臭い
田舎臭い
陰気臭い
胡散(うさん)臭い
白粉(おしろい)臭い
男臭い
女臭い
金(かな)臭い
黴(かび)臭い
きな臭い
吝嗇(けち)臭い
焦げ臭い
酒臭い
しち面倒臭い
邪魔臭い
洒落(しゃら)臭い
熟柿(じゅくし)臭い
小便臭い
素人臭い
辛気(しんき)臭い
饐(す)え臭い
乳臭い
土臭い
照れ臭い
泥臭い
鈍(どん)臭い
糠味噌(ぬかみそ)臭い
鈍(のろ)臭い
馬鹿(ばか)臭い
バタ臭い
半可臭い
人臭い
日向(ひなた)臭い
貧乏臭い
古臭い
分別臭い
仏臭い
抹香臭い
水臭い
面倒臭い
野暮(やぼ)臭い(ぐさい)
生(なま)臭い
寝臭い
物臭い

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Ah, I see what you mean now.

So all of those are read as くさい, and never におい.
Ex- 煙くさい = けむりくさい
煙の臭い = けむりのにおい

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